Its Love All The Way

She woke up before the sun. Shabby, disoriented, lazy. She looked around to find a curled up husband sleeping next to her. The room was in an unorganizable confusion of strewn around clothes and papers. Amidst all the mess and through her sleepy eyes, she looked at him beside her. To her, he was the cutest thing on earth and she bend down to kiss him softly on his cheeks. An unconscious smile she expected to see but he just fidgeted and turned around to continue his comfortable sleep. She smiled, trying not to feel too bad and trying to justify his reaction with reasons of his fatigued state of mind and body, she got up to start her day. The clock ticked away and after an hour of cleaning and organising things, she got started with the cooking. After all the slogging she finally moved towards the bathroom to attend to her needs and give herself a pamper with water. By the time shes ready for office, He had dressed himself up and taken his breakfast which she laid on the table. They were getting late for office and he frowned at her speed. She apologised and walked out with him, with an empty stomach, ear rings in her hand (which she wears on the way) and her files in the other hand. At the bus stop he ran away to catch his bus, without telling her, without looking back. She smiled again, thinking how much of a silly romantic she was and waited for her bus to come. While she waited, she felt the glances of many male eyes sliding through the folded chiffon of her deep green saree. She pulled the cloth to herself rapidly and tried to not get conscious of it. The morning sun rays begin to get hotter and yet her bus hadn’t arrived. She waited there, thinking of where he might have reached. She felt apprehensive thinking of a sweaty him, dehydrated by the sun rays and humidity. Again, her mind sensed the looks on her body from the many men standing next to her. Her deep eyes reddened inside the outline of her black khol. She felt a sudden rise of revolt and a sense of insecurity at the same time. She longed to run to him and stay safe inside his hug. She wanted to talk to him but put aside the idea reserving it for the late evening when she can finally get back to their home and him. At the government hospital where she works as a Gynaecologist, she sat in her consultation room, her nose clogged with the smell of the phenyl with which the sweeper just washed the toilets. One by one, her patients came in. Pregnant ladies, young girls with menstrual irregularities, victims of rape, incest, women with heads bowed down by the weight of shame, wives who are worried over their inability to bear a child.....a long array of troubled women with various problems. She examined each one, talked to them, sometimes cried with them, shared their excitements, relieved their apprehensions. She felt like a midwife sometimes, sometimes like a saviour, sometimes a murderer. All through the day, she had a feeling of anxiety about him. Even while she was engrossed in her examinations she wondered how his day was going, she wondered whether he might even have thought of her once, she hoped he ate his lunch on time and didn’t get exhausted by the sun. She wanted the day to end so that she could get back to her zone of comfort. At the hospital she found herself feeling helpless about the miseries of womanhood. She was deeply pained. She felt vulnerable herself and wanted to run back to him, she wanted to cry. In the evening she got home late to find he wasn’t home yet. She felt too lazy to change and lay on the bed in her deep green saree. When he returned, she ran to hug him and he shrugged her off after a brief embrace. She wanted to tell him about how bad she felt while listening to some of the experiences her patients told her but decided against it as he seemed tired himself. In bed that night, she found herself unable to sleep and a deeply asleep him next to her. All she could do was get up and stand for a while staring outside the balcony. All day she waited to get back home, to cuddle up next to him, to feel secure. The world outside seemed to disown her. She felt like she didn’t have a place to belong to. While all this happened, he slept soundly. The moment he woke up that day morning, he looked at the neatly arranged room and the clean house. He felt slightly guilty for having made her do it all alone and went to look for her. Finding her taking her bath, he too went off to get himself dressed and ready. On the dining table he was delighted to find his favourites and wanted to thank her for it. Since she didn’t show up and he had an urgent meeting to attend, he had his breakfast and when she came, presuming her to have had her meal, he hurried her and they walked out. At the bus stop, seeing his bus come along he ran to catch it fearing he might get late for office if he let it go. All along the way he wondered why she did not call him back for a goodbye kiss and smiled at himself for being such a silly romantic. He faced a tiring day at office and while he lunched he wondered if she had taken her’s. He laughed to himself imagining her funny face while she ate green apples with him during their weekend walks near the marine drive. He wanted to hold her in a hug and pushed the thought reserving it for the evening. The hypocrisies of the corporate life bored him and he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to be his genuine self and hug onto her and listen to her babyish giggles. Too tired after a draining day’s work and the travel back home, he entered his place to find a sleeping her. He felt his love brimming for her and let her sleep peacefully. When she suddenly got up and hugged him, he felt himself the luckiest man on earth. Feeling guilty about not having talked to her and sensing that she was upset about something, he felt uncomfortable. He let go of her trying to avoid a direct conversation which might uncover his guilt. In bed that night he found her silent and lost in thoughts. He wanted to ask her what it was but did not ask fearing what he would say if she said she felt he no longer loved her or that she did not love him. He would be broke without her and hence he silently closed his eyes and fell off to sleep. Below the same roof, two people who loved each other deeply spent that night in solitude. One gazing pointlessly at the world outside the balcony, and the other, sleeping on his bed. It’s often a hard life in which making a living comes first and everything else becomes less prioritised for the people of their class. But when two people like them live together, and deeply love each other, the burden can be eased with expressions of love. The hard life they live can be antidoted with moments of shared solitude and soft conversations. We look for happiness in all places but often fail to enjoy it even if its at a tangible distance, just a conversation away. Life has its own course and in order to survive, we have to move with the practicalities of the world. Letting the race for survival push out love from our priority list is suicidal. Love has to be expressed, the heart needs to be reassured and the skin needs to be touched. To forget to fall in love each day with everything around is to not live at all. Life might bring with it all the testing moments. It might put each one to dead ends. But whatever be it, human life is based on companionship. It truly is Love all the way. In the end, all that matters is a home to belong to and love to sustain you!